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Category:    Home > Reviews > Horror > Thriller > Supernatural > Australia > Memory Lane (2012/Wild Eye/MVD DVD)/Oz Cult Classics Double Feature: The Initiation (1987)/The Dreaming (1988/Umbrella PAL Region Free Import DVD Set)

Memory Lane (2012/Wild Eye/MVD DVD)/Oz Cult Classics Double Feature: The Initiation (1987)/The Dreaming (1988/Umbrella PAL Region Free Import DVD Set)



PLEASE NOTE: The Oz Import DVD set is now only available from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment in Australia, can only play on DVD players that can handle the PAL DVD and can be ordered from the link below.



Memory Lane


Picture: B- Sound: C Extras: B Film: C-



Shawn Holmes' Memory Lane is an interesting premise but ultimately is ruined by bad filmmaking and extremely amateurish acting. It seems that the lot of the film was used with only camera ineffectively and some of the more dramatic moments don't work. Many may give it a chance based on its unique cover art and intriguing storyline but will ultimately end up disappointed. The film stars Michael Guy Allen, Meg Braden, and Julian Curi.


Nick Boxer has just returned from war and things are starting to get back to normal. He's back with his old friends, His old job, and a new girl whom he met about to leap to her death from an abandoned bridge. Oh, that old girl in distress chestnut...


Of course he falls in love with her (rather quickly I may add) and right as he goes to ask her hand in marriage, he finds her lying dead in the bathtub with her wrists slit and stupidly (isn't it always stupid) attempts suicide, though finds that once his heart is stopped that he can see her, hear her, and make love to her. He can relive memories of her. And he can pay closer attention.


Luckily one of Nick's friends knows CPR and rushes into the room to resuscitate Nick in time - zapping him back to reality. Nick relives a vivid memory with Kayla and discovers that she didn't kill herself. Nick, somehow becomes a scientific genius and builds a device that is both electric chair and defibrillator. A machine with the ability to stop his heart and start it. A machine that will take him to memory lane and help him uncover all of the mystery that is Kayla M and who her killer truly is.


Nothing too fancy in the way of presentation with the film in standard definition with a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 track. The audio mix here is surprisingly weak but the image looks about right for DVD, considering the filmmaking.


There are a decent amount of extras including a Commentary, Deleted Scenes, Short Film, Promotional Videos, Screen Tests, and Trailers.



OZ Cult Classics: Double Feature


Picture: C Sound: C Extras: D


Two interesting horror films available from Umbrella Releasing in one nice package. While these films aren't game changers, they do vary in style from American Horror Films, which is always fun.



Initiation


Film: C+


Initiation is 1987 Australian drama film directed by Michael Pearce that takes place in South America, which looks great on film and adds to the foreign creepiness of it all.


Life is about to get very interesting for estranged teenager Danny (Rodney Harvey, My Own Private Idaho) who visits his father on an isolated farm in Australia. Nat Molloy (Bruno Lawrence, The Quiet Earth) lives happily with his girlfriend and her daughter but ongoing struggles with the farm necessitate supplemental income. So Nat earns money on the side smuggling marijuana for a drug connection. When Danny joins his father on one fateful flight, their two-seater plane crashes in the middle of nowhere, forcing father and son to struggle against the elements in order to survive. Yes, it gets one of those fight for survival films, not unlike Alive just with a different location obviously. But it ends up not being as bad as it could have been.


An interesting supporting cast including the wonderful Miranda Otto (Lord of the Rings) and Tony Barry (Mystery Road).



The Dreaming


Film: C+


The Dreaming is a 1988 Australian horror film directed by Mario Andreacchio that many compare to The Last Wave but reminded me a lot of The Orphanage. It plays up on the creepy ghostly psychological angle with a female lead that usually sets the mood for some good scares.


When Doctor Cathy Thornton (A Country Practice) treats an ailing indigenous girl in a hospital emergency room nothing prepares her for the horrors that lie ahead. In the wake of the girl's death, Cathy's life begins to unravel as she is haunted by bad dreams and waking visions, driven by severe and catastrophic events in aboriginal history. Tormented by ghosts of the spiritual landscape, Cathy unwittingly finds herself involved in a 200-year-old murder mystery.


The film also stars Garry Sweet and Arthur Dignam.


The presentations here are nothing to write home about but acceptable considering the time that the films were made and that this is the DVD format we are talking about here. Both films are presented in full frame standard definition with a lossy 2.0 English Dolby Digital track, but they are passable.


No extras.



To order the Oz Umbrella import DVD set, go to this link for it and much more:


http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/



- James Harland Lockhart V

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